tear it all down (i'll build it back up myself)
by savegrantward
Summary: She is born with fire in her veins.


She is born with a fire in her veins. She is born in a sleepy little town outside of Sheffield, in a small little hospital. She goes home with her mother and her father.

She doesn't cry, wrapped in her small pink blanket. She looks at the world with curious, hungry eyes. She grasps her parent's fingers with a touch that is longing to explore more.

She is born with a fire in her veins and the galaxies behind her eyes. The teachers call her _gifted_. Some call her _special_.

Her parents call her sweetheart, and always smile at her perfect test scores and grades.

They smile at the teachers, too, when they tell them that their daughter is _special_.

We know, they say, and she's not _special_ just because she's _smart_.

She has never known abandonment or hate. Her life is one of storybook simplicity. Quiet town, good school, mandatory Sunday night dinners where no one is working or playing or watching the television.

She grows up, running with her pigtails in the wind, riding bikes down sunny roads, skipping home from school with homework tucked neatly into her school bag.

When she is seven, she gets the highest score ever on a school-wide comprehension test.

When she is thirteen, she gets a high school diploma.

She thirsts for knowledge of how the world works, of how cells and chemicals react and create the whole mess that is the universe. She dives into this world, fearless. There is no worry, only curiosity.

When men in black suits show up, she does not hesitate to sign her name.

Suddenly her world is filled with much, much more, in the form of a whole new universe that she had not been able to discover. She dives deeper, into this one, past others who fear the unknown, and in this solitary world, she finds a companion.

Together, they build up their own little world, filled with experiments and quirks and codes and languages that others cannot possibly fathom.

She has studied all her life. She can create death with a drop of chemical. The galaxies behind her eyes have created weapons and protections.

Ten years later, the world is open to her, spreading out beneath her as she flies across the sky. Her and her companion, stepping into yet another world, yet always together.

Everyone in her new family seems a little broken. She sees the weariness in their eyes, the slight in their steps. She knows where they've broken bones or had bruises for far too long. She thinks of her loving mother and father, who always told her they were proud and loved her.

She cannot see this past reflected in the eyes of her new family. She doesn't quite know how to fix that, but she has created a million different forms of life in her hands.

She will fight to fix them.

This is a world unknown to her, though, where people fight and kill with fists, where they break themselves to save others and build up legacies they do not desire.

She is proud of all her accomplishments. She sees these people weighed down by their own.

She does not bend to fit this new world, only molds certain parts of herself to encompass others in the world she and her companion have created. While he is hesitant, she is fearless.

The only way to learn is to explore the unknown.

She is not afraid of the consequences. She takes them with fiery eyes and a steel jaw. She holds her head high and she fights for this new family because she has learned that love is important.

She jumps out of a plane, because she must. She is not ashamed as she is reprimanded, only holds her head down as a means of keeping her breath steady. The man beside is stiff as a board.

She wonders if he was expecting more than a verbal reprimanding as a punishment.

She has fire in her veins, keeping her young. She plays pranks, tells stories, and revels in her newfound life.

When her companion gets lost, she is momentarily disoriented. The organization they serve, which protects them along with everybody else, has failed them.

Her friend takes her by the hand and drags her along on a vendetta to get him and the other man back.

Her friend does not ask for help, and questions authority without a second thought.

She wonders how long her friend has been on her own.

Her companion is back, though, safe and sound.

Things start to get darker though.

This break in faith has opened up a whole new universe, one with a dangerous amount of questions.

She goes on though, while others fall in doubt or despair. She is not afraid of the answers.

Her friend gets shot. There is blood between her fingers and splattered across her shirt and she cannot help but think that she was never a doctor, yet they always look to her. Before, she was proud to heal them. Now, she is scared, frustrated. Before, the only lives she held in her hands were cells. She does not know how to hold a human life in her grip.

She cannot save her.

Something else does, something alien, unknown, something she cannot explain.

She fights to understand. She loses this fight to the high up powers she cannot question.

The world gets darker. Monsters and men come out of the shadows, shattering the life she holds so dear, sweeping her beliefs to the ground.

She does not flinch.

Only sweeps her beliefs and conscience up in her arms, holding tight to them while the world around her crumbles.

She believes in science. This is what matters.

Her companion holds onto the world they once knew with clenched fists, but it pulls away.

She is left comforting him as he holds the shreds of the fabric of his former life in his hands.

She will soldier on.

She is not afraid to face him again, the man they called their friend. She is not afraid to look him in the eye.

Her companion's voice shakes.

She only speaks with steadfast malice.

It is a long fall into the ocean.

All life began where her life is now ending. The world is slipping out of her control. Her life is not ending. Her companion's life is.

She takes a breath.

She breaks the surface.

Her world has been reformed once again, as she lies in a chamber talking to a man who was pronounced dead to the world a week ago.

She greets her friends with a shaking smile.

The world tilts slightly, without her companion to straighten her gaze.

She leaves in the early morning.

The only person there is her former mentor, who looks at her with eyes that yield no emotions.

But she is a genius, and can see all the emotions swirling just beneath her skin.

She looks back, because she has to go forward.

She relearns how to be fearless.

She leaps back into her old world with wild eyes and fire rushing through her veins.

She makes no apologies for her absence, only takes back what was hers with knowledge of her own rights.

She builds herself back up.

She does not have to hold back her emotions to be strong, or fight to be known. She is a genius with the knowledge of the world rushing beneath her skin.

Her family rebuilds itself, piece by piece.

One day, he stumbles in, leaning on another woman who has seen the darkest side of their world. His blood flows onto the ground, seeping beneath her feet. He stands before, her, vulnerable.

Her family steps back, and looks at her with questioning eyes. She has every right to turn him away, the one who broke her vision of the world and tossed her into the sea and fractured her away from her companion.

But she was born with fire running through her veins. She was born without hate, or fear.

This is what allows her to step forward and wipe away the blood, and mend the wounds without hesitation.

Her whole world broke apart before her eyes.

She learned the only thing she knew was how to put it back together.


End file.
